


Vegas

by orphan_account



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-15
Updated: 2012-07-15
Packaged: 2017-11-10 00:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/460151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>2006</p>
    </blockquote>





	Vegas

**Author's Note:**

> 2006

Darren’s and an apartment with desert out of every window, where he can stare and imagine it’s Fall, no trees or that cold snap in the air when you first walk outside, but Fall just the same.

Here he can write and play and when he can’t, when whatever has been eating at his brain refuses to make it onto paper, he can go find some bar in some casino, order up a shot or five and wait.

Wait and watch another chip get thrown across the table, the fingers it leaves shaking just a little bit cause the owners of those fingers are sure that it’ll be the card that makes their money back. Waits and listens to another quarter fall through the slot, another button on the $25 machine jabbed too hard or stroked with almost love, to send wheels spinning, time moving like syrup for the seconds it takes for the machine to stutter and swallow another week’s money without giving out.

If he shuts his eyes he can almost smell the crushed hope, the desperation and disappointment as that card tips the hand and the machine makes that fucking laughing sound that’ll taunt you in your sleep. And still they stay, order up another round and leave a greasy bill on the tray when a tired looking waitress who really isn’t paid enough for this shit brings a Jack and coke and a too bright smile.

Here he can sit and hide in plain view, be him when no one knows who he is. Nobody to grab him in some bar and wait what is always ten minutes before asking where Chris is. Ten minutes pretending to ask about him when their eyes are always on the door. 

A different casino every night, fifty bucks won and lost and Jack warming his belly. He could stay here, except that he can’t. They have what they’ve been fighting for for years at the tip of their fingers, so real he can taste it. Something a little more than straight to dvd movies and soundtracks for flavor of the month tv shows. Movies and record deals and no time to blink in months. Sure he’s forgotten how to relax without a shit load of beer and a joint hanging from his lips and his cell’s probably welded to his shoulder, the tumor by his ear growing by the second from four hour calls to fuck knows where.

Nodding as the bar tender tips the bottle in his direction, another shot brimming over the glass and he needs to get up off this stool before his ass is numb. Get up before the sounds and lights do that thing at the back of his eyes and he swears he can see Elvis over there in the corner.

Tonight's a bust, the napkin he’s been scribbling on all night, notes and words and his heart, running black over white as whiskey soaks paper and it really is time to go.

Get his ass into bed, get the car to the airport in the morning and the plane to LA. Get his ass home. Back to where plastic tits and too red lips are not just after dark in some club with a $100 cover and watered down drinks. Leaning back, fingers pushing into his pocket, past the cell that hasn’t made a fucking noise all night, to grab a screwed up twenty, dump it on the bar and wave away his change. 

Walking, cause he can do that here, taking the flyers for live sex shows and boys that can whistle Dixie through their dicks, until his hands are full and he’s outside Darren’s building. Turning to look around one last time, too bright, too loud and he gets why Chris loves it here so much, why they keep coming back. If only cause Chris can sit at a table in cut offs and his hair in a quick tie and no one will know or care who he is. If only cause they can be who they are.

Cold air hitting his face as the door closes with a thud behind him, boots too loud on marble he almost doesn’t hear his cell.

"Hey..."


End file.
